


On My Mind (Always)

by p1013



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, Pensieves, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22819534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p1013/pseuds/p1013
Summary: Draco turns off the water, places the kettle back on the stove, lights the burner. It dances, blue-gold beneath the white ceramic, and he wishes he could be something as bright, as fierce, as a flame.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 41
Kudos: 263





	On My Mind (Always)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fantasizingmyfantasies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasizingmyfantasies/gifts).



There have been many Pensieves in the history of the Malfoy family. The oldest can be traced all the way to Armand Malfoy II, the first scion of the name. His Pensieve, while archaic, still has a heavy mist clinging to its rough-hewn edges, though the images it contains are so thin and distorted as to be incomprehensible. It rests with dozens of other cold stone and metal bowls, etched with runes and symbols, filled with magic and memory. Some are small enough to fit within the palm of a hand, while others require their own rooms, their smooth surfaces like glass, reflecting back the past. All of them are stored in the Manor, though, hidden away and waiting.

Draco's Pensieve is only barely related to those. He wanted something uniquely his own, something that would separate him from the history of his name while containing the history of his life. So instead of smooth silver or white marble, instead of something sterile and cold, his Pensieve is made of hand beaten copper. It's warm to the touch, the tool marks deep and obvious in its dented surface. The color is a ripple of orange and gold, tarnished at the edges with verdigris. It's a good size, about the same as one of the basin sinks at Hogwarts, but not so large that he can't move it around his flat easily. It is, after all, a very private thing, his Pensieve, and he doesn't want to leave it out where others can find it.

Not that he has visitors.

The magic within it is his own, but it sparks with something unique and different than the other Malfoy Pensieves. It's welcoming, rather than distant. It seems to open its arms to him when he goes to view his memories, drawing him close while keeping him safe. It's as if the Pensieve understands what Draco needs more than he does, when it comes time to view his past.

When he first bought it, he used it to process through the last years of the Second Wizarding War. He'd seen things, done things, that he needed distance from, needed objectivity to move on from. It had taken him half a year to go through his sixth, watching his body grow thin and wasted with fear. He didn't realize his hands had shaken so much, that he'd spent so many nights tossing and turning, eyes gritted with tears, teeth gritted with fear. He watches himself collapse when he fixes the Vanishing Cabinet, and he feels sympathy and grief for the boy he'd been in that moment, full of hope that this was the end, that now, everything would be over.

He hasn't started his seventh year, not certain if he ever can.

There are other memories that he turns his focus to. It started with a bathroom floor, covered in his blood, a ferocious and terrified figure standing over him, wand extended and eyes wide.

After that, it had been a deluge. A constant stream of memories of Potter, each one outlined in black and green and gold. He watched them, again and again, like a man starving. He didn't think about the why, then. Didn't want to examine what it meant that when he was at his lowest, when he was feeling his worst, he'd find comfort is a deep voice sneering his name or darkly curled hair whipping past as fingers other than his wrapped around a gleaming winged orb.

It's been years since he started. Now, the Pensieve is so thick with memories of Potter that when Draco stares down at it, he swears the mist has taken on his coloring. It doesn't help that they work together, at least a little, at the Ministry of Magic. Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived, the Master of Death, Auror. Untouchable and golden, while Malfoy moves almost unseen through the various departments, paging for whoever needs him that week. It's a far place to have fallen for a Malfoy, but, as he reminds himself every morning before work, it's better than Azkaban.

He catches glimpses of Potter in the hallways. Quick flashes of dark hair and lean muscles, bright smiles and polite nods. He never looks at Draco, invisible along the edges as if he owns the Invisibility Cloak instead of Potter. But Draco feeds those memories into his Pensieve, too. Those miniscule seconds of sight, all poured into the copper bowl so he can stare.

Stare, and want.

He doesn't know when it started. Maybe that first day in Madam Malkin's, maybe later. He thinks it might've been when Potter cursed him and apologized almost in the same breath. Or maybe it was when he saw Potter's face, swollen and ugly and still recognizable, and he'd lied. Sometime in the years between then and now, though, Draco has fallen irrevocably into lust (not love; Malfoys aren't built for that emotion, for any emotion, other than contempt) with Harry Potter.

So, along with his true memories, with the things he's done and seen and felt, he pulls his fantasies and restless dreams from his mind to settle within the black-and-green-and-gold of his Pensieve. Heated touches and panting mouths. Fingers twisting in clothes, desperate and impatient. His mouth heavy with the taste of Potter's tongue and cock. The feeling of his body opening while Potter pushes his way inside, hot breath exhaled against the shell of his ear as the Boy Who Lived calls him Draco, his voice rough with emotions that Draco can't force himself to name.

It's not all fucking. There are quiet moments. Peaceful ones, where they lay tangled in the sheets, golden morning light glowing across the blankets as they twist their fingers together like knotted cords. Potter leaning against Draco's kitchen counter, shirtless, laughing as he holds out a steaming cup of tea. Listening to Quidditch on the wireless, both of them shouting about bad calls and whose team is better. Small snippets of domesticity that Draco didn't even realize he wanted until he'd dreamt them. Those are the worst, though. Even more than the nightmares of his sixth year, of the Dark Lord looming over him, of his mother, he hates these dreams. These glimpses of something he'll never have, desired and beloved and gutting with how much he wants. 

(Malfoys aren't built for love.)

He pulls them from his body like cancer, deposits them into the Pensieve and tells himself he won't watch later, when he's had too much firewhiskey, when the lights are low and the night is dark, and Draco feels so alone and empty, he can't breathe.

* * *

He wakes up to an owl tapping raucously against his bedroom window. It's Saturday, he's slept in, and he reminds himself, as he stumbles to let the damn thing in, that killing an owl is a fine of 500 Galleons and six months of community service.

It swoops to his desk, dropping the letter in its beak almost into Draco's Pensieve, then sits, staring at him with wide, tawny eyes, as he grabs the envelope and tears it open.

_ Mr. Malfoy, _

_ We have captured a former Death Eater, Amycus Carrow. Due to your familiarity with him and your knowledge of Death Eater activity before the end of the war, we request that you send in whatever memories you have of him and his actions during that time. _

_ Yours, _

_ Head Auror Gawain Robards _

Groaning, Draco runs a hand over his face before tossing the message aside. He'd avoided the Carrows as much as possible, honestly, but he understands the request and why Robards would ask it off him. Still hates it, though.

He delays sending the memories because it's early and it's _Saturday_ , damn it. He takes a long shower and eats breakfast at half the speed he normally would. The owl follows him around his flat, hopping from room to room with him, hooting in quiet annoyance. It stops fussing when he tosses it a bit of last night's roast, its hooting becoming softer and pleased. When it turns its piteous eyes back up to him, beak clacking as if begging for more, Draco laughs, tosses it another scrap, and goes looking for his glass vials.

He's distracted by the owl while pulling memories from the Pensieve. It seems to have adopted him, in a way, staying close and calling to him quietly.

"Yes, yes," he says more than once, scratching its soft, downy neck before going back to the task at hand. "You'll have more before you leave, I promise."

It nibbles on his fingers, and he suddenly wishes he still had an owl of his own, a creature that would miss him when he was gone. Maybe he'll get one like this, a great owl with silent wings and intelligent eyes.

After another moment, he sends four vials with the bird. He wraps each one in a bit of parchment, then bundles them all together with more parchment and twine and a short note — _Robards, this is all I could find. I'm afraid I didn't know the man well._ — and sends the owl off with another bit of roast, watching its wings fade into the haze of London.

The rest of his day is long and dull. He reads _The Prophet_. He turns on the Puddlemere United match against the Cannons, but turns it off when Puddlemere pulls to an early lead and one of the Cannons's chasers is taken off the field with an injury. Even with a second string replacement and no sign of the Snitch, Draco knows how the match is going to end.

He doesn't use his Pensieve, though he thinks about it. It's a quiet day, but a restive one. He's done his best not to think of the War, but anytime Robards asks for information, for memory, for history, it brings it all, bright and painful, to the forefront of his mind. He could so easily lose himself in other memories, in his fantasies and his imaginations. But as he sits in his favorite armchair, his bare feet tucked up underneath him, his worn and warm jumper falling over his fingertips, he silently watches the sun set over London instead.

There's beauty in the world, he reminds himself. It's not all dark memory and bleak remembrance.

As the sky shifts from orange-red to the deep purple of a bruise, there's a quiet knock at his door. The sound is almost hesitant, as if it doesn't want to bother him, not really. Frowning, he twists to look at the door behind him, then sighs when another, more insistent pounding, starts on the other side.

He trods to the door, flipping the lights on as he goes — he likes the softness of twilight, the way it washes over his home — and pulls the door open, eyebrow already cocked and polite, society smile in place.

"Malfoy."

It's Potter.

He's wearing his Auror uniform. The robes are a deep black, its silver buttons bright and shining in the light cast from Draco's apartment. Underneath is a white shirt, the collar undone and showing the rapid pulse of Potter's heart in his throat. Draco, mind still stunned and hazy, thinks he'll put that into his Pensieve as soon as Potter leaves, so he can remember what it looks like to see the man's heart beneath his skin.

"Malfoy," Potter says again, sounding more annoyed this time. "Let me in."

He steps back at the command, then shakes himself free from whatever daze he's fallen into. "What are you doing here, Potter?"

"What are you playing at?" he shouts. "Why in the hell would you send those things to Robards?"

Draco closes the door. "A little decorum, Potter. What would the neighbors think?"

"That I'm here to kill you," he says between gritted teeth. "Which I just might."

"Of course. Shall I put the kettle on?"

"Bugger your kettle. Why'd you send those memories to Robards?"

Draco walks to the kitchen, waiting for anger to grow within him but only finding a cold impassivity that's somehow worse. He'd been kidding about the kettle, but his hands want something to do, so he grabs it from his stove and starts filling it at the tap.

"Malfoy. What are you on about?"

"I'm making tea."

"Goddammit, look at me."

Draco turns off the water, places the kettle back on the stove, lights the burner. It dances, blue-gold beneath the white ceramic, and he wishes he could be something as bright, as fierce, as a flame.

Turning to face Potter, he locks his grey eyes on green, hopes this will be painless and knows that it won't. "Robards asked for information on Carrow. I sent him what I had."

"You bloody well didn't."

Anger flickers to life inside him, warm and welcome. "I did, though it wasn't very much. I tried to avoid the man, and his odious sister, as much as I could that last year."

"You sent _some_ of your memories of him," Potter spits out. "And you sent some about _me_."

Draco freezes.

"No, I didn't."

"Yes." Potter reaches into his pocket and pulls out two vials. He angrily tosses them to Draco. His old Seeker reflexes kick in, and he catches the two, familiar containers with numb fingers. "You did."

Hands shaking, Draco pushes his way past Potter to his living room and the Pensieve sitting there. He takes his wand, unstoppers the vials, and then pours their contents into the swirling mass before snatching them from the flow so he can see. He can feel Potter looming over his shoulder, tries not to think of him watching, too.

The first is just another one of his idle fantasies. Harry has Draco's chest pressed up against one of the stone walls of the Ministry's basement. His pants are around his knees, and Harry is pressing into him, his hand wrapped around Draco's throat as he hisses heated words into his ear.

_ "Do you like that, Malfoy? You like the way you feel on my cock? I'm going to split you open, make you come all over that wall while I fuck you. Going to use you like the whore you are." _

Harry pounds into his body with ferocity, leaving bruises around Draco's neck. He slides his fingers into Draco's panting mouth, makes Draco suck on them until they're wet and dripping with it, before he trails his hand lower, lower, lower.

Draco tries not to flush, tries not to grow aroused as he dismisses it. He knows how this one ends. Draco on his knees, his chest sticky, and Harry standing over him, his dick hard and hot and flushed in his hand, as he comes all over Draco's face before licking it from his skin.

"It's a fantasy, Potter. I'm sure you've had them yourself," he says dismissively, throat tight. "I'd apologize for my subconscious, but I'm not entirely sure I have any control over the thing. You're a fit man, it's been awhile for me, and that's all. It doesn't mean anything."

"The other one does," Potter says angrily, and now, Draco's afraid to watch.

Fire crackles merrily in the fireplace. Snow is falling outside. Fairy lights twinkle on the buildings across from his. There's a small tree in the corner, filling the flat with the smell of pine and sap. Pictures litter the mantlepiece. Photos of Draco and Harry together. Holding hands. Arms thrown casually over shoulders. Faces close together, eyes closed, smiling.

Draco is on the couch, tucked under a poorly knit blanket, a small DM monogrammed onto the corner he worries under his fingers. A book is propped in his lap, and he turns the pages with a slow, steady focus. Harry is on the other end of the couch, Draco's feet tucked into the nest of his lap, and though he has the latest copy of _Seeker Weekly_ in his hands, he's not looking at it. Instead, his eyes are watching Draco, expression gentle and full of fondness, of affection, of a hundred different emotions that are tangential to (but not) love. He stares at Draco as if he sparkles like snow, as if he's warm like fire, as if he's home and hearth and happiness in a singular form.

As if he can feel Harry's eyes on him, Draco looks up and catches his gaze. Slowly, his mouth curves, reflects the emotions gleaming from Harry's eyes like a mirror. He pushes his foot into the center of Harry's chest, laughing, and Harry catches it, presses a kiss to the arch, and places it back in his lap, his magazine in his hands and his cheeks flushed red.

There aren't words for this. There's no explanation. As Draco stares down at this precious, hidden thing, he finds he can't speak.

"What's that about, then?" Potter asks.

"I — " Draco swallows. "I'd like you to leave. Now, if you'd please."

He can't turn around. He can't face this.

"Draco."

He breaks. Two syllables are all he needs to feel everything within him shatter. Shame, hot and heavy, flows through him to the point of pain. It washes over him on a wave of regret and disgust that threatens to overwhelm him. He wants to throw his Pensieve to the floor. Wants to break something so this awful, agonized feeling within can have an outlet. Wants to spin around and face Potter and shake him and ruin him, the way that Potter has ruined Draco with his own name.

Instead, he lets Potter put his hand on his elbow, lets himself be turned until he's staring into green eyes, as twisted and turbulent as a flooded river, spilling over its banks.

"What does it mean?" Potter's voice breaks. "Please."

"It means…" Draco swallows.

Malfoys aren't meant for this.

"It means I love you."

The hand on his elbow tightens to the point of pain, but it's only another drop in the ocean he's drowning in. And then another when Potter pulls his hand away.

Silent, he reaches for his wand, eyes still trained on Draco's face. He brings the tip to his temple, and as Draco watches, he pulls silvery memories from his mind. They flow like molten glass into Draco's Pensieve, swirling in a mix of grey and green and silver-white. Flashes of his face, of his body disappearing around corners, of his neat writing scattered across parchment. There's blood and regret, the thrill of Quidditch, their eyes meeting when he whispers _"I can't — I can't be sure_." And as the memories grow in number, there are glimpses of an arched neck, of red lips parted. Voices talking quietly in the dark of night, bodies curled together beneath the weight of blankets and safety.

Draco can't breathe. His hands are shaking. It's sixth year all over again, only this time there's hope hidden in the tremble beneath his skin.

Harry's wand clatters to the floor when he drops it. Draco wants to protest, but he can't _breathe_.

"Draco," Harry says again, his hands cupping Draco's elbows with a gentle, terrified grasp. "Don't you know, you idiot? I love you, too."

And then they're kissing, and it's better than anything in the Pensieve behind them. Because this is real. This is unimagined. This is what Harry Potter's mouth feels against his. This is what he sounds like when he's panting with want. This is what it feels like when those strong arms wrap around Draco's body, when those calloused fingers hunt beneath his clothing for flesh. This is the chaotic shedding of clothes down a hallway, the laughing fall onto a mattress, the groans and slaps of their bodies coming together. This is what it sounds like when Harry comes, crying Draco's name like a prayer, what it sounds like when Draco breaks again, only this time with pleasure instead of pain.

They lay on the bed, not even beneath the blankets, too fevered in their rush to the bedroom to bother pulling them away before. Their fingers tangle together like knotted cords, and Draco feels something tight and cold leak from his chest like a memory. He's filled with beaten copper, with green, tarnished warmth, and he thinks he'll keep this memory for himself.


End file.
